


Dramatis Personae

by Silybum



Category: 7th Dragon (Video Game)
Genre: Canon End of the World, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Dragons, Gen, Mentions of Death, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silybum/pseuds/Silybum
Summary: They didn’t start out as Unit 13, remember? They were strangers who joined together because they wanted to beat a game with dragons in it because how cool was that? It all went downhill from there.





	1. The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Samurai)

It was supposed to be just a game, this is what you tell yourself in despair, on the very bad days, when you have to wait on the infirmary because there is yet another rush of new patients, because there is a new worsening of dragon sickness symptoms, because your teammates are hurt so badly that your broken ribs and aching wrists and internal bleeding can wait in comparison.

You did not ask for this, but you are trying, you try, even in the very worst days. Unlike fists and cards, your swords can take some measure of damage; your blade becomes a shield. This surprise, at least, is welcome.

Still, sometimes, you fail, and you're not the only one that pays the consequences those times. It's not easy to drag yourself up whenever you are knocked down, over and over again, but it's even less so to swallow the screams of outrage in your throat when one of the others goes down. They are not weak, by any means, they can get up and continue to fight, broken as they may get, just fine, just like you, but you feel all the worse for it. You’ll do better next time, you promise, always, and they leave it at that, like it's that easy. Like they believe you. It’s a shocking concept.

They never waver, they never doubt your abilities, even when you do; when you fall, they are as ready to shield you form attacks until you can get up again, as you are to do the same for them. It occurs to you that these are your friends, your family, the ones you are fighting for.

This why you choose to keep fighting, even when new faces join Unit 13; leaving them is not an option. You train every moment you can steal for yourself, until your palms and fingers are full of blisters, and all your bones seem to crack when you move; you cook, you clean, you sharpen your swords. These are all very little things, but it’s all you can do.

You are nothing, in the grand scheme of things, but you will kill every dragon that stands before you if that's what it takes to keep your loved ones safe.

In this, you will not falter.

You will drag yourself up, no matter how many times you fall, over and over—for them. For the world that they fight to protect.


	2. The Little Match Girl (Duelist)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second one up: the one who plays to win.

And they think it's a game, they think you are playing at being a hero, hiding behind the creatures you summon; they think you are different from them, they think of you as a separate parasite, calling on them to shield you and offering nothing in return.

And they are _wrong_ , that's the thing. It itches in your skin, makes you want to shove your hands in their faces and scream at them, and the only reason why you don’t is because it’s exactly what they expect. You are so young, you know this, a temper tantrum is to be expected, really; at this point, it's more surprising you haven't ruined yourself thinking about the future you might not live to have at all. So young and already on the frontlines, _too_ young to be bloodied and bruised, to spend half your nights in the recovery room, wheezing through the pain because god forbid they make you addicted to pain killers at your age. So young and foolish, but this is what you chose. Is what you will keep on choosing, even when every card you use hurts you enough to forget how to breathe. Of course they wouldn't know what is like, it's not just picking a card and calling a monster, you have to become a conduit for the power you channel; when you hold the card, everything that you ask for has to go through you first.

No one but those closest to you pays attention to your hands, and anyway you have taken to wearing gloves when you are not on the field, to hide the worst of it from the people who may care; from the people who may judge such a young thing already ruined with such ugly hands always papercut to ribbons, the fingertips open, peeled to the muscle, the cracked nails, almost black and blue from the blood coagulated underneath; electricity has ruined the skin in your arms, already, marred it with patterns like lighting; you have come far too close far too many times to losing your fingers due to frostbite; and fire _burns_ , this truth holds for you, blisters and pain and having to ask again and again for skin inserts just to be able to hold cutlery.

It’s never been simply a matter of chance, you know how to make your own fortune, how to place your fingers to tip the scales, to even the odds.

You are young, but you know what you have to do.

You are going to save the world, even if you have to break all of your fingers to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added one more chapter to have the complete set. 
> 
> Tell me about you party!


	3. The Firebird (God-Hand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third: the one with the healing fists.

You do not look like a god hand: this, you know; this is deliberate on your part. Or maybe it's because your sister suggested it and it helps her. It also helps you, although in a very different manner. While her disguise is an attempt at camouflage, yours is a ruse. Whenever someone tried to catch you off guard in close-quarters thinking you wouldn't be able to whip a gun fast enough, you surprised them with a punch to the face, and _damn_ if that's not always the best feeling in the world.

Still, that's not why you were asked to join this team—and it's true, you were asked, someone smiled at you and thought that your deception was useful instead of ridiculous or underhanded, and thought they could trust you to watch their backs and keep them whole. And you—you may have fallen a bit in love then. May still be falling, if not for them then for the feeling of being accepted and wanted. It's something bright and warm and you want to hold that close for the rest of your life; it is also something you want to keep, and that means keeping those who make you feel like that alive, at the very least.

You cannot protect them from the enemies, you cannot protect them for the pain, both in body and in mind; they will fight and they will get hurt; they will bleed and cry, because they have chosen this, because the alternative was unchoosable, for them as well as you. You cannot stop all the cruelty of this world from sinking its claws on them, but you have your own claws and you will use them to tear your friends away from such darkness. You will rip apart with your bare hands whatever threatens them, and you will put them back together, always, without fail, with all the love that you can muster. You will dry their tears, and clean off the blood and let them know how proud you are of them, how proud you are to call them friends and family and teammates, every time they get back up and choose, _always, without fail_ , to continue to fight, to hold back the tide that threatens to drown this world and all others in another probervial flood.

Let your fists revive the world, let your fists mend your comrades; your love and your wrath are your reply to this calamity and you will see it through.

You chose to be god-hand to punch fate in the face, and that's exactly what you're going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two characters that don't match their class' designs, and here we have the first one!
> 
> I got my inspiration for this one from the the Witch of Wrath, from Re:Zero, so there's that.


	4. The Nightingale (Agent)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth one up: the one who definitely didn't sign up for this, and yet...

You joined because you wanted to make sure your sibling's friends didn't do something stupid, fully knowing that there were times in which "something stupid" would be the best course of action. You joined his team intendin to be an asset because you were supposed to be useful, in the same way you have gone your whole life seeking how to best make use of what you have, and even a simple game put you to the test. 

And what came after that even more so, because— _dragons_ , actual, real dragons? You're more than useless, you're a burden. Or you would be, if you let such challenges dictate your actions. 

You make yourself useful, in the same way your housekeeper outfit has been useful for disguising what you are and what you do as much as the guns you keep strapped to your thighs, ever ready. This deceit was your idea, and you convinced your beloved sibling to go with it because they know nothing if not love. This deceit becomes a truth, the more time you spend working in the labs, in the infirmary, in the rest floor, slaving away in the kitchen in a manic frenzy because _what if they're hungry when they come back_ (they will, they always are, almost dying takes its toll on the human body), _what if they are hurt and want homemade pastries? What if some soup makes them feel better? What if they are cold and want some tea?_ You take on this new role with a fierceness that compares to your recklessness in those times when you are needed on the field. Whether it is because someone is hurt or your skillset is needed or there is literally no one else able or willing to lend a hand to your teammates, the bastards.

You help at Nodens in the R&D department, the refugee rooms, the library and pretty much everywhere you are allowed in; you steal information left and right, just in case, because you might be surrounded by allies now, but you know that, the way things are going, that will change.

You like to be useful because it's a way to use the gifts you were born with and those you've earned through time and effort; you don't like to be used. And you definitely don't like the idea that your friends, your family, might be being used by people who will throw them away when they no longer can do so.

And so, you prepare for the worst and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have the second character whose appearance doesn't match their class, and we are done with the classes available for the first party!
> 
> Next up are the Atlanteans, so that's going to be fun. Maybe.


	5. The Fisherman and his soul (Rune Knight)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fifth one: the knight in shining armor, or something like that.

You had been ready to die along with Atlantis, but not without putting up a fight. You had been ready to follow Eigur and fight against a dragon you knew, you knew, had no chance of defeating because you loved your city and its people; and watching it die with those damn weeds blooming all over had been already a slow dead for you. And then, and then, Unit 13 had shown up in their strange clothes, with heir strange weapons and even stranger behavior and the delusion —mad, impossible, beautiful— that they could kill the dragon. And they had led you against that golden monster, and they had killed it (its blood staining them and you, even in your dibelief), and the despair that had been squeezing the life out of your heart had metamorphosed into something brilliant and elated.

There was no saving Atlantis, though, and you lost your home, but you were saved all the same. You owe them your life, the life of your people. Your world might have crumbled beneath you, the wreckage left behind lodged between your ribs like a dull ache on most days, but your princess is alive, Eigur is alive, you are surrounded by the people you were willing to die for and you've begun to thrive, all for you, lulled by the sea that still, still, surrounds you.

This is your home now, and they are your family as much as the other Atlanteans.

This is your home, and your family, and you are as willing to fight and die for them now as you were then.

You will not lose another home, because you have learned that dragons can be killed.

Duty and love coil in your heart of hearts in one impossible mess as you wrap your magic around your sword and swear your fealty all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sudden hiatus, things went crazy for a while. Hopefully, there won't be other massive delays.
> 
> Come visit my tumblr [here](http://sheepibum.tumblr.com/)


	6. The Little Mermaid (Fortuner)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sixth one: the witch from the bottom of the sea is trying her best, okay?

You didn't want to die. This admission, that you are now allowed to reflect on, because you and your people have been saved, might make you a coward, but it is what it is, and it is the truth. And you may be a coward, but when Eigur called for you and told you to go face the dragon with people you had never seen before and had no reason to trust, you went. It felt like a death sentence, like the team that is sent for reconnaissance and that rarely came back unscathed, that, ever since the dragons, rarely came back at all.

But you went, and you—you were slapped in the face with a hope so big your hands could not possibly contain it. When the dragon fell, bloodied and torn apart, you fell too, under the crushing weight of a power that surely had to come with strings as heavy, with responsibilities as dire, with consequences you could not (cannot, sill) fathom.

The roots of your old life found new soil, you have been welcomed and cared for, and although your skin no longer has the lingering taste of sea salt, you are learning how to walk among these people—it's not a tale of despair, although it should be. Although it might become one, sooner that you expect; such knowledge is undeniable for you, it feels like one of your curses hanging over all of your heads, over this whole world. You hex the enemies that attempt to harm them, you make them bleed and sleep, you blind them and poison them and watch them crawl across the ground as you suck their life into your own veins; even while you whisper prayers to knit back together flesh and bone, to restore the spirit of your allies and become a panacea for their ailments. This, at the very least, you can do, cowardice and all.

You can inflict curses just as you can raise the dead, and for them, _for them, oh, for them_ , you will do both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Eden chapters are coming so slooowly... I feel like I should replay the game, since it's been so long, but I don't have the time...
> 
> Come visit my tumblr [here](http://sheepibum.tumblr.com/)


	7. The Black Bull of Norroway (Banisher)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Seventh: for this man turned beast, family comes first.

The truth is that you should be dead. It would have been merciful, to have died with your heart still inside your chest cavity, instead of being forced to mourn its loss. A loss that haunts you, because you had fooled yourself into thinking you could prevent it, you could stop it; you could save the world. And when the dragon came, you were proven wrong, and not even by the dragon itself.

The flowers killed the ones you loved the most. They coughed and coughed, until they could no longer breathe, until they stopped breathing, altogether. For all you trained to hunt dragons, their evil reached your family and you lost everything you promised yourself that you would protect or die trying, and you didn’t even have the decency to die. They wouldn’t let you die; Brijilt wouldn’t let you, not even when you begged her to. She believed a chance would come to defeat the dragon.

And it did. Salvation came in the form of a young face with old eyes, something beyond even Brijilt’s faith, and you begged again, this time to be allowed to return to the fray. It was vengeance, yes, but it became more than that.

For all your world is thousands of years away from theirs, these children are the ones with a future—you are but a wraith with a past. And yet, heedlessly, recklessly, they welcome you. Together you are an impossibility, an army both young and old, human and not; an amalgamation of the past and the present and hope for the future.

This is your family, these are your little ones, you have decided. This world hasn’t been entirely forsaken if you can have this. You shall be a shield, you shall be a wall; let the enemies break against your armor, for you shall not falter. You are made of iron and fire, a mimicry of a dragon that exists only to hunt their kind, and while you draw breath that is what you shall strive to do. If nothing else, because you were left with nothing else and you have received a second chance even so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I havent't replayed the game. I remember nothing. I'm sorry.
> 
> ... you can yell at me [here](http://sheepibum.tumblr.com/).


	8. The Gingerbread Man (Mage)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eighth: the one who thinks spite is the spice of life.

You learn them like a dance, like a spell; their presence thrums in your bones, tingles in your fingertips. Your core was supposed to be a hardened, sharp thing, fueled by magic and selfishness, and yet, here you are.

It makes no sense. The past was consumed by dragons; by all accounts their mission (now your mission, as well) has been doomed before it had started. But then, you’ve grown used to doing things out of spite. It’s not that different to decide to do something in spite of. The dragon can go suck its own eyeballs, as far as you’re concerned.

They already have healers, and they already have elemental magic, but that means very little when facing the creatures they go against. They can use every scrap of power they can muster, you included. It’d hard to deny them anything, you find. There is very little you would try to deny them, anyway, you learn.

They are lovely, they are loving, they are full of love and hope and all things good and soft and worth fighting for; no wonder all of you (yes, you; _you_ , in particular) —strangers in a strange land with the end of the world at your heels— bend so readily when faced with such radiance, such a blazing, all-consuming will. It’s impossible not to love the one who leads you and loves you.

Your heart feels like bursting out of your chest, full as it is of the hate you have been so graciously provided with. And it is hate; you see no need to sugarcoat what you feel, it is as precious as those who have brought about the feeling. Your blood sings, the furnace of your ever-growing hate feeds your magic and every time you call upon it you recall every little things that has carved a mark in your memory, that has earned a place of honor in the list of things you hate: how hard it is to scrub blood off your clothes, the way your food smells when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted to, the scars your friends try to hide as if they were something they should be ashamed of, the uselessness of those who push all of you to the frontlines, the nightmares that haunt all of you every night; the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you see their watery smiles, their trembling fingers, their bitten lips, the absolutely unforgivable moisture gathered in their eyes; the unfairness of it all and the very real possibility of failure looming at the end of your journey. Above all else, you hate the dragons more than you thought possible.

The list grows every day, after every battle, every brush near death. It feels never-ending. It feels like your nerve endings being torn open, like having to restitch the seams of your crumbling self day in and day out, simply because you refuse to be gone and leave the things you love at the mercy of the things you hate. They have made you who you are, so you refuse to die out of love and strive to live out of hate, and in the end you can only hope it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: haters gonna hate (hate, hate, hate).
> 
> I'm sorry I disappeared again, some stuff happened and I was in a sort of weird place for a while. The last chapter is done, so I'll try to publish that sometime next week.


	9. The Ugly Duckling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ninth: the last one.

And then there’s you. You, who wasn’t so much chosen to be part of this as used to fill a hole in the structure of the ever-growing force of nature that Unit 13 has proven itself to be. There are three teams, and they were missing a member and the best thing they could find was you. You don't fool yourself into thinking you are needed; if not you, they would have chosen another adequately suited candidate from the pile of files on Julietta’s desk and which has been lovingly curated by Nagamimi’s biting sarcasm and impossibly high criteria. 

It's enough to make anyone bitter, you think. And it's not like you don't want to save the world, it's not that you don't see the appeal in being a hero to the people or even working closely with those who actually are, it's just...

It's just that you are an easily replaceable piece, a little cog in this godly machine that can be used and thrown away and someone else will take your place, there are plenty of someones already waiting for you to prove to be not good enough. Your place is a prize as much as a dead sentence, children walking to their death, with claws and fangs looming ever present at their throats, with the weight of the world on their shoulders and it's no wonder you can't sleep at night, tossing and turning every time you hear their cries; the night terrors might be the one thing that will defeat them, you think. You see them pushing their beds together, making a pile of bodies, still warm but who knows come tomorrow, sharing warmth and skin and comfort until they fall unconscious more than asleep, all while you watch from afar, thinking _I don't want this_. _I didn't ask for this_.

But would it be worth it to fall? To die or say no thanks and step down, and are those truly your only options? A traitor or a hero, cowardice or bravery, save the world or doom it, selfishness or sacrifice; and it wouldn't matter what you’d chose, because someone else, **_someone else_** , would take your place

This, you know.

They’re terrible in their beauty, and you want no part in it, as far removed from them as you are, as you know you always will be, but you have also learned this: there is no changing your nature, only owning up to it. Flightless birds can run and survive, too; beautiful or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, we're done!
> 
> I might have a short story coming after this, but it's still in progress. If you want, you can visit [here](http://sheepibum.tumblr.com/) for probably, at some point, more stuff.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on the possible members of your party based on the different classes and, of course, my own playthrough, but I hope you can enjoy it a least a little.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as sheepibum.


End file.
